


but writing shall make him remembered

by a_nybodys



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Backstory, During Canon, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28546935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nybodys/pseuds/a_nybodys
Summary: Man decays, his corpse is dust,All his kin have perished;But a book makes him rememberedThrough the mouth of its reciterBetter is a book than a well-built house...They made heirs for themselves of books,Of instructions they had composed...Death made their names forgottenBut books made them remembered.- Papyrus Chester Beatty IV--AKA: I wanted to write about Ancient Egypt and what Ahk's life might've been like before he was brought to the Museum of Natural History.
Relationships: Ahkmenrah & Kahmunrah (Night at the Museum), Ahkmenrah & Merenkahre (Night at the Museum), Ahkmenrah & Shepseheret (Night at the Museum), Ahkmenrah (Night at the Museum) & Original Female Character(s), Ahkmenrah (Night at the Museum)/Original Male Character(s), Merenkahre/Shepseheret (Night at the Museum)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	but writing shall make him remembered

A breeze filtered throughout the palace, carrying with it the heady scent of cinnamon, myrrh and the cloying of sweet roses. Gauzy curtains billowed and sunlight streamed from Ra above. The palace sat, high above the streets and the sounds from below filtered through the distance and caused the harsh sounds of clattering carts and marketplace banter to become soft and hazy, dreamlike in simplicity. A cry broke through the still air, heavy with perfumes and incenses. Ahkmen, future fourth king of the fourth king, ran through the alabaster halls, tiny feet slapping against the stone and giggling cries echoing, naked as the day he was born. He barrelled through servants and priests alike, only caring for his pursuer. 

“Ahkmen! You little demon, get back here!” Kahun was the pursuer in question. He had been tasked with taking care of his little brother while Merenkahre and Shepseheret had their alone time. Well, Kahmun and a legion of servants. Said servants were watching the debacle with hidden smiles and chortles, eyeing the young man and his four year old brother. Ahkmen, having looked back at his brother, ran headfirst into a wall, knocked onto his rear, his side lock of hair flopping against the newly-forming bruise. A gasp rang out and a host of hands reached out to help the boy as tears of shock formed in his pale eyes. Kahmun was there first, however, and he scooped the child up in his arms with only slight effort, muscular from the efforts of his training to become a general. 

Kahmun held his little brother to his chest, and patted his back awkwardly as he sobbed. The boy was born seventeen years after him, he held no real childhood attachment to him, but there was something about his big eyes that drew Kahmun in, something about the way he had looked to Kahmun as one would look at the moon and stars. The boy clearly idolized him and, prone to praise, Kahmun accepted his idolatry. Nevermind that they did not have the same mother, Kahmun told himself that when he was pharaoh, he would elevate his younger brother to be his right hand. 

-

Ahkmen stared out of the curtained windows. The nighttime air carried promise, a promise of reunion. Kahmun had been away for years and he was coming back that night. Ahkmen, a mere eight years old, had been waiting for the far-off war to end for three years. He had vague memories of his brother, of playing with him in the gardens and bathing pools, of watching him and a guard play senet in the courtyards, of holding Ahkmen to his chest and shushing him when he got out of sorts. Just last week, Ahkmen had been told by his father and mother that the war that had been raging for most of his life had ended in victory, and that he would be able to see Kahmun again. He had grinned so wide for the rest of the day that his tutors had had to stop lessons to gain his attention once more.

From deep in the palace’s heart a clattering of footsteps and a soft murmur of voices alerted the boy to an arrival. He jumped from the window ledge onto his bed, dodging gauze and patting Adjo, his newly given dog, as he ran from the room. Bare feet against alabaster and limestone and the labored breaths of a youth who does not know control echoed throughout the halls, and just as Ahkmen was arriving at the throne room, so echoed the shouts of his father. He skidded, hiding behind a corner as he made out the voices of his father and, with a jolt of surprise, his brother.

“I do not understand, how is Ahkmen next in line? I am the oldest, I get superiority!”

“You have no restraint, no control! You are not even born of the queen!”

“You have told me, from birth, that I am the one destined for the throne, you cannot suddenly change you-” The lisping shouts of Kahmun were interrupted by a swift slap, and the sudden silence was deafening.

“You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do. I am Pharaoh, I am the morning and the evening star! You are no more than a petulant boy, hot off the heels of success and until you show me that you are worthy, you will never sit on the throne.” There was silence once more until all sound flooded back, an explosion of movement, a gasping breath, and the visceral noise of blade cutting flesh. Ahkmen dared a peek, seeing only a torrent of dripping red coming from his mother’s arm, and his big brother being dragged bodily, thrashing and frothing, from the room. Servants surrounded Shepseheret, catching her as her body grew faint, hurrying her to her chambers. Ahkmen watched, tears cutting paths down his face and breath hitching. He watched as his father followed his mother, quickly speaking a few words to a remaining guard, who followed the squirming form of his brother. 

Ahkmen did not sleep that night, or the following two after that.

-

He was ten, and he was so sick of being told what he could and could not do. His hair was finally allowed to grow, having hit puberty just the year before, and he felt the wind rustle his curls. He was seated in one of the palace’s many gardens, petting Adjo, who’s head lay in the boy’s lap. He had escaped from lessons that morning, hiding under his bed. The dark, cramped space had been scary, but he got over it quickly, telling himself he was grown now. His tutor, a small, mousy man, had been in the process of telling Ahkmen about marriage, when Ahkmen had been overcome with a nauseous feeling and had sprinted from the room. 

He did not know why he needed to marry a girl.

“There’s my little monkey,” his mother’s soft voice sounded from the doorway. Ahkmen’s head snapped up, looking fearfully at what his mother might say about his flight from classes. When he was greeted with a smile, he relaxed, and Shepseheret made her way down to the ground, crossing her legs under her and gathering her baby boy into her arms. She kissed the top of his head, and he closed his eyes against the warmth of her chest. “You tutor told me of your escape.”

Ahkmen sighed, a sound too heavy for a boy of his age.

“I don’t understand why I have to marry a girl.” He spoke, the sound muffled by his mouth pressing against his mother’s collarbone in embarrassment. He then shot up, struck by an idea. “Can I not just marry Rahotep? He is my best friend and I would enjoy his company more than a girl!” Rahotep was the son of his father’s vizier, Ramose, brought to work by his father to be shown the ins and outs of the job that would one day be his. Ahkmen and Rahotep had become fast friends and would be found together more often than not. 

His mother stalled, her hand pausing in its path stroking down his back. "I'm sorry, my darling." Ahkmen sighed once again, laying his head back firmly against his mother's neck, pressing the cool metal of her usekh against his heated forehead.

A soft silence took over, only the gentle clinking of his mother's jewelry and the faint breaths of Adjo. 

"I want you to know…" Shepseheret started, and then stopped, gathering her thoughts. Ahkmen watched the scar on her arm as it paused in its gentle ministrations. "I will love you, Ahkmen, no matter what happens," she pulled back from her son, gripping his small shoulders in her jewel encrusted fingers. Her dark eyes met his light ones, and her soft mouth curved into a smile, though her furrowed brows betrayed her concern. "Do you understand, my little monkey?"

Ahkmen, shaken by the concern of his mother, and not quite understanding it, nodded, soft curls bouncing. His nod, however, cleared the creases in his mother's face, and she hugged him once more. He burrowed, nuzzling her neck, and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling that turned in his stomach.

-

“Oh gods, oh gods watch out for the-!” The shout was interrupted by the clattering of a marketplace stall crashing into the whinnying horses and spinning wheels of a royal chariot. Ahkmen, twelve and not nearly well prepared enough for this… set of circumstances he had found himself in.

It was only supposed to be a little joyride.

His father was going to kill him.

“We are so sorry, sir, I’m sure my father can help replace your stall.” Rahotep, a year older and slightly more well adjusted than Ahkmen, was trying to calm the shaken fruit stand owner that they had crashed into. 

“My father can replace your stall, that is if he doesn’t kill me first,” Ahkmen called out from the other side of the chariot, kneeling to help a woman who had fallen in the commotion.

“I don’t care how important your father is, you boys should be made tl- oh my gods, your majesty, I had no idea!” Ahkmen had stood in the middle of the short man’s tirade, and the man had paled considerably, suddenly realizing how intricate and how well taken care of the chariot and its steeds were. He quickly moved to kneel, before Ahkmen rushed to his side, helping him stand again.

“Please, do not kneel, I have done you a great disservice.” The man, shaken from both the unexpected crash and the unexpected visit from royalty could only stammer, and with help from the woman in the stall next to him, the two boys got the information they needed in order to repay the man for their mistake. Just as the two could breathe again, they were rushed by two panting palace guards, leaning on their spears to catch their breath.

“Your majesty should not be out unaccompanied!” and, in a flurried frenzy, the two guards swept Ahkmen and Rahotep into the chariot, a tight squeeze for two grown men and two boys on the cusp of adolescence. 

Rahotep caught Ahkmen’s gaze and made an exaggerated grimace, as if he had caught the wind of a particularly bad smell. The younger boy was startled into a snort, hiding his giggles into his bare arms. The boys laughed all the way to the palace and, even after an exceptionally harsh tongue-lashing from both sets of parents, every time they made eye contact they would burst into a fresh peal of laughter.

Ahkmen’s mother smirked behind her hand, as Merenkahre shouted himself silly and the boys tried to stifle their chortles.

Tomorrow, she would hand deliver the funds needed to rebuild the man’s market stall and more, but tonight she would usher the boys from the throne room and talk her husband down from a more severe punishment. 

After all, she knew how young love could be.

-

His mother was dead. A sickness had swept throughout Egypt, ravaging the weak and strong, rich and poor alike. Ravaging his mother. He had sat with her, at the end, holding her hand until her grip went lax, dabbing at her sweat dotted forehead until the creases in her face smoothed and the light left her beautiful dark eyes. He was thirteen and his mother was dead.

The funerary processions began immediately, and he was rushed from the room in order for the priests to begin the mummification process. She would be buried in their family tomb. Shepseheret's section of carved hieroglyphics had already been started, when news of her fatal illness had reached his father who had been away discussing a food shortage with farmers on the outskirts of Egypt.

He had rushed home immediately.

It would take many, many days to complete her wrappings, being attended to by countless priests and magicians of the highest order. In the meantime, carving would resume tenfold, and the mourning process would begin.

Ahkmen stooped, staring at his tearstained face in the reflection of the bathing pool. Servants kept out of sight, standing at the back of the room waiting for an order from the prince. The kohl around his eyes was running, and his tears were black as the splattered against the alabaster below. 

He stood, suddenly, knees aching from the position he had kept for what seemed like hours. The sun was setting, and red rays illuminated the stone of the palace, staining it as red as the blood that had pooled in his mother's mouth as she had drawn her final, shaken breath.

He rushed from the room, white linen billowing behind him, and servants scurried behind him. He began to run, trying to outrun the setting sun, and he arrived in the throne room just as the torches and lamps were being lit. His father started at his son's entrance, heaving a sudden breath as though surfacing from a long swim.

"Where is it?" Ahkmen was serious, face stony and voice shaking minutely. He met the eyes of his father, wide and unsettled.

"My son?"

"Where is my tablet?" Merenkahre sighed, waving away the guards that had started at the intrusion with a simple gesture.

"It is not here, Ahkmen. It is the tomb, waiting for the day we all are buried." Ahkmen grit his teeth, feeling crazed as a wild animal.

"We could bring her back! We could stop the processes and give her life again!"

"We cannot yet. We have to prepare her body for the afterlife.”

Ahkmen paced, furrowing his eyebrows, freshly shaved alongside his head in mourning. “But we need not prepare her body if she should not be dead in the first place! She can be alive again!” Ahkmen gasped for breath, his lungs feeling ever tighter the longer he ranted and paced. “Why can she not be alive again?!” He was stopped by strong hands grasping his arms and pulling him into a hug. Ahkmen gasped into Merenkahre’s chest, breathing in the strong scent of his frankincense perfume. His father grasped his head tightly, and despite the strength he held, Ahkmen could feel the slight tremors in his father’s big hands. 

He would only have to wait seventy days. Then he could see her again. They both could.

-

He was fifteen and he was an orphan. An assassin had broken into the palace under cover of night, and had poisoned Merenkahre. The assailant had been caught and executed, body thrown into the desert sands and left to rot. Ahkmen had become Ahkmenrah, fourth king of the fourth king, and his heart ached at the thought.

Kahmun was gone, dead or banished he did not know, and half crazed when he left. Shepseheret was dead, buried in their shared tomb that he had visited with his father every other night. And now Merenkahre would begin his journey into life after death, and Ahkmenrah was left.

Alone.

His hair was once again shaved, just having grown back from the mourning period two years prior, the only sign of mourning being his hairless eyebrows, as his head was now covered with the deshret of a pharaoh. He was bedecked in jewels, precious metals, and grief in every inch of his young body. Wandering the halls of the palace was painful, reminding him only of the life that once filled the halls, of his mothers twinkling laughter, of his father’s booming voice, calling for Ahkmen. Of his brother. His brother’s voice, soft and lisping, a direct contrast to the mood he always seemed to be in. His brother’s arms, muscled and straining as he tried to hold his toddler brother back from trouble. His brother’s anger, loud and spitting and biting, slashing with his khopesh, his blue khepresh that once set proudly on his brow being knocked to the floor in the struggle. 

His brother’s strained smile, hazy through age, as he had looked down at Ahkmen, meeting him for the first time a year after his birth.

He did not know what had happened to Kahmun after he was dragged from the palace that day, nor what Merenkahre had told the guards.

Ahkmenrah had a sneaking suspicion of who the assassin had been sent by.

-

Ahkmenrah was too tired for a sixteen year old. 

Being Pharaoh was not at all easy like his tutors and council had made it seem. They had told him everything he would need to know, everything he would have to do, but they had said it in a detached way, as if he would not need to know for many years. And then his father died. 

The days after his sixteenth birthday were long, filled with meetings and classes and talks with his council on how best to serve his kingdom and he was exhausted. He would escape whenever he could, hiding behind corners and under furniture like he had done as a child. He knew it was silly, but the darkness helped him clear his mind, the cool of the alabaster walls pressed against his back, bare except for his sheer cape, helped calm his nerves. His mother always told him he had too many worries for a young boy, his head was too full of what-ifs. 

He was hiding behind a corner, having left a heated conversation about marriage to be argued about in the echoing throne room between his gaggle of priests and officials that always had a say in what he did.

“Who are you hiding from, my lord?”

Ahkmenrah jumped, one hand grasping his chest, in which he was sure his heart had skipped a beat, the other gripping his deshret in a desperate move to stop the malleable gold crown from being dented on the stone floors.

“Rahotep, gods you scared me! You could have given me a heart attack.” Ahkmenrah and his vizier had only grown closer over the years and, when Merenkahre had died Rahotep’s father had passed down the mantle to him, with close supervision.

“Apologies, your majesty.” Rahotep bowed his head as if in regret, but was betrayed by the smirk that showed from under the gold capped strands of his wig.

“I couldn’t bear it if you were charged with my death. We all know what happened to the last person to be charged with such.” Ahkmenrah bared his teeth in a grin, which shocked a laugh from the older teen.

“I sometimes worry about your humor, your majesty. If I did not know you, I would think it rather… dark”

“And what do you think because you do know me?” Ahkmenrah tilted his head up, cocking it with a leer. Rahotep leaned forward and caught himself with an outstretched hand that hit the wall behind Ahkmenrah’s head.

“I think you are funny,” Rahotep whispered, only for Ahkmenrah to hear.

Ahkmenrah had understood what made him different from other boys after his talk with Shepseheret in the gardens. He understood why his stomach twisted whenever he had looked at Rahotep, and why he never thought of any of the servant girls in the same way. They were beautiful, of course, and Ahkmenrah envied their dresses and long wigs with shiny gold beads in the strands, but he never wanted to marry any of them.

Rahotep had only become more beautiful as the years passed, and Ahkmenrah was starting to think that he felt the same flutters that Ahkmenrah felt whenever their hands brushed. Ahkmenrah could feel Rahotep’s breath on his face and, without thinking twice, he tilted his up further and pressed his lips against Rahotep’s. Rahotep jolted in surprise, and Ahkmenrah jerked back, covering his mouth with his hands.

“I- I am sorry, Rahotep, this does not have to-” he was cut off by Rahotep grasping his face and kissing him once again. Ahkmenrah, gasping into the kiss, closed his eyes.  
They were interrupted by the sound of laughter, and they pulled apart, avoiding eye contact. 

“You are needed in the throne room, your majesty,” the servant woman hid her smile behind her head, bowed in deference to the pharaoh.

“Right. I- uhm-” Ahkmenrah caught Rahotep’s eyes awkwardly, and the taller boy smiled.

“Go. We can continue our discussion later.” The twinkle in his eye caused Ahkmenrah to let out an undignified snort and rolled his eyes.

“Some discussion, Rahotep.”

Ahkmenrah carried a light in his chest for the rest of the day and, if he kept catching the eyes of his vizier staring at him throughout the countless meetings and talks, well that was none of anyone’s business but his.

-

The night air was chilled, carrying the sounds of far off locusts and wind-blown sands, the gentle lapping of the Nile just out of reach. Ahkmenrah, seventeen and exhausted in every inch of his young body, was sleeping. His bedchamber window, left open to allow a cool breeze to soothe Ahkmenrah’s heated forehead, billowed with gauzy curtains. Everything was perfect.

Except for the intruder, scaling the walls of the palace the same way he used to escape his punishments that confined him to his rooms as a child. The intruder knew every foothold and, finally breaching the inner rooms of the Pharaoh, landed lightly on his bare feet. 

The boy king, head propped on his gold-plated bed’s headrest, stirred, as a shadow loomed over his prone body. Blearily opening his eyes, Ahkmenrah saw, for the first time in nearly a decade, saw his brother. Jolting awake, Ahkmenrah scuttled backward onto his bed, staring in fear at the man that loomed over him, khopesh in hand.

“K-Kahmun?” the boy whispered, soft voice rough with sleep.

“I am Kahmunrah.” and with a sadistic grin, Kahmun raised his sword and brought it down heavily onto his younger brother. Ahkmenrah, shielding his torso with his arms, gasped as the black metal sliced his skin, soaking his bed linen, already cool and wet from sleep preparations hours before, with the sticky red viscera of fresh blood. “or at least I will be, very soon.”

Ahkmenrah kicked out, foot catching the vulnerable stomach of his brother and scrambled onto the floor, running towards the doorway.

“Guards! Rahote-” His brother grabbed his foot, causing Ahkmenrah to crash to the ground in a flurry of limbs and blood. Ahkmenrah, seventeen and terrified, clawed at the stone flooring, scraping his fingertips bloody and leaving dark gory lines streaked across the alabaster white floor. Kahmun swiped with his khopesh once again and Ahkmenrah, with all the grace of a newborn gazelle, squirmed out of reach at the last second, causing a loud clash and a burst of sparks as the metal scraped the stone flooring. Ahkmenrah kicked out once again, writhing his foot free from the sweaty and bloody grip of his brother. He crawled forward again, pulling himself across the floor with slippery hands. He did not bother with words, letting out a guttural scream instead. 

The scream was not finished before Kahmun grabbed Ahkmenrah by his face, covering his mouth with a large, muscled hand. 

“Shut up, you little demon!” Kahmun hissed and, before Ahkmenrah could make another move, plunged his sword into the center of the boy’s back. Ahkmenrah’s scream, which had carried through the hand clasped to his face, trickled off into a gurgled moan and, with each consecutive puncture, the noise grew softer, until there was no sound at all besides the sickening squelch of weapon in viscera and the distant, but growing ever closer, pounding of feet against stone.

Ahkmenrah, boy king, was dead before he had truly begun living.

-

There was darkness, a cold, bone chilling lack of the warmth of life, and then he awoke. The darkness he experienced then was different to the darkness of before. This darkness was warm, inviting, and he could see a sliver of light around his body. He wished not to think of the darkness from before.

He moved his arm, feeling the press of his hand against wood, and he pushed. His death mask and the lid of his inner sarcophagus moved easily, and he was bathed in light once more, though his sight was hindered by the linen wrapped snugly around his body. He stood, reaching clumsily with one hand to unwrap himself, before a warm hand touched his shoulder and started to do it for him. 

“Hello, my little monkey.” Shepseheret, as beautiful and radiant as ever, stood before him, the first thing he saw in his new afterlife.

“Mother!” Ahkmenrah surged forward, not caring for the rest of his wrappings, and grasped his mother in a tight hug. He had not been able to visit as often as he had wanted to in the past years. All at once, the pain and trauma of dying caused Ahkmenrah, for this first time in a long time, to begin weeping. It was a strange feeling, gasping for air when his lungs lay breathing in a jar in the far corner of the tomb. 

A hand fell down onto Ahkmenrah’s shoulder, and he jolted, pulling himself away from his mother and turning to face his father. Merenkahre had not aged since his death, and Ahkmenrah looked up at him and for a split second saw only the face of his brother. His heart, the only organ remaining in his body, beat painfully hard before he pulled himself from his head and hugged his father tightly.

“We are so proud of you, Ahkmen,” Shepseheret whispered into his ear from behind him, hugging him from the other side.

“And we are so very sorry.”

-

And that’s how four thousand years of undeath was spent. Wake. Talk with his parents. Sleep. Repeat. Of course there were others to talk to, the paintings and carvings on the walls were horrible gossips, and the tiny boats buried with the royal family were filled with small people, made to be a crew of sailors to help the family into the afterlife. The Anubis statues that guarded the entrance were taciturn, but they provided some company. The Shabtis that acted as servants for his family were overly formal, and provided no fulfilling company. And then there were the viziers.

After the emotional reunion, and after Ahkmen discussed his death, Merenkahre and Shepseheret explained that at the end of each work week, on the day of rest, Merenkahre’s vizier would bring them news of the goings on in the kingdom.

“And, I suppose that you are no longer living, Rahotep will come as well.” This admission, said off-handedly by his father, caused Ahkmenrah’s breath to catch in his throat. He would see Rahotep once more?

And he did. When the end of the week had arrived, and the sun had set, a soft scraping of stone being moved was heard, a sound that caused Ahkmenrah’s heart to beat in his otherwise empty chest. Ramose was first through the doorway, and Merenkahre walked over to greet him, clasping a hand to his shoulder. Rahotep was next and, seeing Ahkmenrah in the flickering torchlight, he grinned.

Ahkmenrah laughed breathlessly.

Every week after that, while the adults discussed, Rahotep and Ahkmenrah would hide out in a different room in the sprawling tomb. Rahotep would tell Ahkmenrah what had become of his kingdom, and Ahkmenrah would listen with rapt enjoyment.

It was from these conversations that Ahkmenrah learned of Kahmunrah’s fate. Rahotep told him the first night, surrounded by moving wall paintings and the fire casting dark shadows the size of giants, that he had been the one to find Ahkmenrah’s body.

In finding the lifeless body of Ahkmenrah, he had found Kahmunrah, half crazed with bloodlust and madness. Kahmunrah had lashed out, but Rahotep was skilled with the sword, having been taught by the same palace guards that had taught Kahmunrah in his youth. In the end, Rahotep had won out, gaining the upper hand when Kahmunrah mistepped. The adrenaline wore off as he stared down at the bodies of the last two sons in the line of Merenkahre. He had dropped his khopesh with a clatter as the guards stormed the room.

In the following days, a convoy composed of Ahkmenrah’s council had met with Merenkahre and Shepseheret at night to discuss what to do with Kahmun, the would-be usurper. In the end, Merenkahre decided to leave his body to the elements, dropping him in the desert to rot away in obscurity. According to Kahmun’s followers that had crawled out of the woodwork in the days hence, he was building a gate of some kind, built to fit his brother’s tablet perfectly. Keeping him from being mummified kept him from rising again and leading their family to ruin.

“It was hard, seeing you so broken and bloody.”

“It was even harder feeling it, I assure you.”

Rahotep chuckled, but it did not cease his eyes from welling up.

“I can scarcely shake the image of you, lying so still. If not for the blood, you would have looked as if you were sleeping”

“You need not think of it any longer. I am here,” Ahkmenrah took Rahotep’s hand, placing it softly over his heart that pounded in his chest. “and you are here beside me.”

-

The years passed, and at each visit, Rahotep grew and Ahkmenrah stayed the same. The date of Rahotep’s twenty-first birthday arrived sooner than Ahkmenrah could bear and as the two sat in the empty room, Ahkmenrah took a breath.

“I do not think you should come any longer.”

Rahotep jerked, turning his head from Ahkmenrah’s shoulder.

“Why do you say that?”

Ahkmenrah sighed, staring into the darkness, hearing the distant murmurs of his parents and Ramose.

“You cannot stay pining after me for the rest of your life. I am dead, Rahotep.”

“You say this as if I am unaware of that fact.”

“You have to find someone to live the rest of your life with. Someone who isn’t eternally seventeen and only alive at night.”

“But what if I don’t want to? What if I only want to spend my life with my best friend, who drove chariots with me, who played pretend in the palace gardens. My best friend who I love beyond any measure.”

Ahkmenrah looked up at Rahotep, who was out of breath and shaking.

“You have to let me go, Rahotep.”

“What if I don’t know how?”

For the last time, Ahkmenrah took Rahotep’s face in hand and pressed his petal-soft lips against his best friends’. 

As the night turned to day, Rahotep helped his father out of the tomb, sealing it against grave robbers behind himself.

He did not return.

-

The days bore onto monotony. Wake. Sleep. Wake. Sleep. The tomb that was considered incredibly spacious by the builders seemed to shrink in on him with every passing day. How much can you discuss with your parents who are also entombed with you? 

Some nights he did not even bother getting out of his sarcophagus. He would wake, stare into the inky blackness that each day seemed more like the void of death with each passing day. He could not keep track of the days now. At least in the beginning the heartbreak of saying goodbye to Rahotep kept him going. Now, it seemed, he had nothing to keep his mind from decaying just as his body was.

Ahkmenrah would catch sight of his tablet every night as he got into his sarcophagus, the glow seeming to mock him. He begged his father to turn it off, to let them get rest. Merenkahre had refused, staunchly and adamantly. Ahkmenrah had argued, but once Merenkahre had made up his mind, only Shepseheret could change it, and she was on his side on this matter. 

It bore into Ahkmenrah, the tedium and repetition boring into his head. He would avoid his parents in the sprawling and echoing tomb, and he would sit at the very entrance, straining to hear the shifting sands beyond the stone. If all was quiet, and he listened as hard as he could, he could just make out the locusts chirping in the night. The Anubis statues would keep watch for him, tapping their staves to the stone ground if someone would approach, but he was rarely interrupted. He felt so empty, noticing the lack of organs even more keenly. What he wouldn’t give to feel the sun on his skin, feel the sand between his toes, to breath without feeling it through lungs that sat meters away.

His prayers were finally answered, even if four-thousand years late.

-

He woke to darkness, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, however, was the gentle movement beneath his body. He pressed upward, feeling his heart beat a tattoo against his ribs. The lid to his sarcophagus jammed as he pushed on it, something was blocking it. The movement jolted, as if catching on something, and for a second, Ahkmenrah was airborne within his box. How exciting. 

In the darkness, Ahkmenrah grinned. Finally, something new.

-

The next time he woke, he was greeted with light, streaming directly into his eyes. He moaned, the linen wrappings doing little to shield his eyes from the light they were unused to. He shifted, sitting up in his sarcophagus.

A small voice sounded from near his elbow, and was followed by a clattering noise. Ahkmenrah reached up to pull the wrappings from his face and was greeted to a small woman who was staring at him, pale and shaking like the wings of a scarab. 

“I am Ahkmenrah, fourth king of the fourth king and ruler of the land of my fathers.” 

The woman, whose eyes were nearly covered by large pieces of glass, furrowed her dark eyebrows. She said something in a language that Ahkmenrah could not understand. Ahkmenrah swung his legs out of his sarcophagus, dropping off of the table it was perched on and standing on the cold flooring below. His foot caught on the tablet, which must have been the cause of the clattering noise as it had fallen to the floor. He stooped to pick it up, and then stood at his full height, towering over the small woman who was trying to hide behind a small rectangular board that she clutched in her quivering hands. Her hair was black and pulled upward into a headscarf, tied at the top of her head, and her skin was dark and shone in the lamplight like the glittering sands of Egypt under the light on Khonsu. She spoke again, and shook her head when he did not respond. They were at an impasse.

Over the course of the night, she would try and scribble down hieroglyphs as he watched over her shoulder. At times he would wander as she muttered to herself, sight catching on everything new. They were in a large room, lamps being strung over tables from the vaulted ceiling. Shelves were stacked in neat rows, and held artifacts in varying stages of decomposition. He peeked over the edge of one, a fragment of a death mask, and waved a finger at the tiny moving drawings and the blinking eye of the mask.

The woman called to him once she was done scribbling and he marched over, linen wrappings trailing behind him like a cape. She pointed down at her paper, and he furrowed his eyebrows at the writing. He read through it twice, making sure he had read it correctly.

“You are a student at a place of learning, which is where we are, and I have been brought here to be studied?” Ahkmenrah repeated, and the woman said something and nodded to confirm.

“Hm… well this might be difficult.”

-

Years passed and Ahkmenrah was studied in the daytime, and studied at night. Frances, as he learned her name through gesturing and speaking soon after the first night, steadily taught him English. Through patchy hieroglyphs and, eventually, English, Frances taught him of what he had missed while languishing in his tomb and, in return, Ahkmenrah taught her of his homeland, as well as spoken Egyptian. The two became close friends, Frances, only 19, being easily excitable and a frantic bundle of nervous energy. Ahkmenrah, more mellow but still a seventeen year old at heart, balanced her nerves and added excitement of his own. As the years went on, Ahkmenrah was eventually put on display in the Egyptology department of the archaeology wing, having finished being studied. Frances would visit every night, letting him free of his sarcophagus and he would help her decode whatever Egyptian artifact she was studying that night. When the night waned, and Frances had to take her glasses off to prevent migraines, Ahkmenrah would tell her about his family, about Rahotep. She wasn’t a great listener, interrupting whenever she had a thought, but he didn’t mind. He learned from one of these conversations that she had a lover, her name was Milly, and that they lived as roommates. Milly was a poet, and Frances would bring in her poetry sometimes to read to Ahkmenrah on slow nights.

One night, in 1948, eight years after he had arrived, Frances rushed into the building, frantically laughing as she opened Ahkmenrah’s coffin. She began talking a mile a minute, before he ever had his wrappings off of his face.

“They’re allowing women to get degrees! I’ll be able to graduate, Ahk!” And, as soon as he stood, she rushed to hug him. The first time she had gone to hug him, Ahkmenrah was taken aback, jolting away from her. No one had ever tried to hug him before, other than his family and Rahotep. Now, Ahkmenrah hugged her back. Frances had been studying in Cambridge for eight years, taking any and all classes having to do with archaeology or Egyptology that she could. During long nights, when discussions changed from scholarly to personal, Frances would lament about how she couldn’t graduate, couldn’t get a degree even if she wanted to. 

“Congratulations, Frances!”

“I’ll graduate this summer, with a degree in Archaeology. I can finally go out and do fieldwork!”

And so, up until that summer, Frances was even more frenetic than usual, trying to finish her classes strong and ‘get all her ducks in a row’ as she had put it one night. Ahkmenrah helped the best he could. 

The night of her graduation, she visited for the last time, opening his coffin with a tearful smile. They talked, without the pretense of learning, and discussed Frances’ future, her plans to ship out to Egypt in the spring, having been snapped up by a prestigious archaeological group planning to begin work in the Valley of the Kings. She told him of the letters Milly planned to write every week, that the home she would be staying in had a brand new telephone. As the night wound to a close, Frances promised to visit, though her access to the labs at night would be restricted now that she had graduated, so she would only be able to see him in the day. Frances helped Ahkmenrah into his sarcophagus, and promised that he would be alright. And, with a final hug, she was gone.

In the few minutes before sunrise as Ahkmenrah laid in the dark, he allowed himself to cry.

-

The years passed quickly after that, being nothing like the thousands he had spent in his tomb. Occasionally, a student would stay after dark, but Ahkmenrah would avoid them, leaving them to their work in peace. He was still mourning the loss of Frances, though he knew she was safe. It was also at night that he would begin to miss his parents. Frances had told him, on one of the first few nights, that his parents had been taken to be studied by the staff at the British Museum, a mere hour away from the university. It was strange to think it after four thousand years, but Ahkmenrah began to miss his parents again while spending the nights alone in the empty university. He would chat with other relics, in pieces and faded, but nothing truly felt the same as interacting with a person, with their own feelings, emotions, and history.

And then 1952 brought about change. In the nights preceding, there were groups of men that came in every so often to check the coffin, and Ahkmenrah was forced to remain inside his sarcophagus while they did. He overheard them discussing his imminent move to somewhere called ‘New York’ and a museum there. He had many questions about this place, where it was and if he would be able to move freely without worry of discovery while there.

His questions were answered, though not exactly as he wished.

-

He woke, as always, to darkness. He sighed and reached up to push the lid off. It caught, just as it had when he had left his tomb for the first time. However, he was not moving. He pushed upward again, hearing a rattle of a lock on the outside of his coffin. He could hear, in the distance, sounds of animals stampeding and shouts of surprise. He sighed and settled in, hoping someone would come and free him soon.

It wasn’t long before he heard pounding footsteps enter the room he was held in, rushing closer to him.

“The tablet’s glowing, Gus.”

“I can see that, Reginald.” A second voice cut in, higher pitched than the first.

Ahkmenrah pounded on the lid again, rattling the lock. The two men shouted.

“Could one of you open the lid for me please?”

There was a silence, and then two pairs of footsteps made their way to the other side of his coffin. As the rattle of metal told Ahkmenrah that they were going to free him, a third pair of footsteps entered the room.

“What are you doing?!”

“He said he wanted out, Cecil.” 

“You cannot let him out, his tablet says his removal from the tomb’ll bring about the end!”

And with a few more mumbled objections, the three men left the room, leaving Ahkmenrah locked in.

And there he stayed. 

All night he rattled the lid, asking out to anyone who passed to help him. None came to his aid.

He soon began a routine again. Wake. Push on the lid. Sleep. Repeat. As the years wore on, the darkness became more and more like the cold inky blackness of death, and he grew more and more desperate. As soon as he woke he would begin screaming in every language he knew. The casket, made to fit his body, grew increasingly unbearable with every passing night.

He had not realized when he began screaming for his mother. 

-

After years and years of screaming, hearing life move on without him outside, he was finally saved. As soon as the locks began jingling against each other, Ahkmenrah began screaming anew, forgetting to speak in English in his haste. He rattled the lid, pushing against it with all of his strength and, as soon as it was free, it flew towards the wall, hitting it with a thud. He sat up for the first time in fifty-four years.

His savior shouted hurriedly at him, asking him to call off his guards. The jackal guards had followed him here? He hadn’t seen them since the night before being taken from his tomb. He turned, shouted a command at them to stop. They kneeled and obeyed, crossing an arm over each of their chests. He needed to see light properly. With shaking hands, he unhooked the top of the linen that wrapped around his head, freeing himself once again. He blinked against the light, his eyes watering at the unusual sensation after years of darkness. He coughed.

Dust erupted from his dry mouth, causing the man in front of him to cough as well. He was scrawny, his hair dark and his features concerned. There was a boy behind him, looking somewhere between scared and awed. Ahkmenrah grinned, for the first time in fifty-four years.

“You would not believe how stuffy it is in there!”

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaalrighty so this is a long time coming. the first fanfiction I ever wrote was for night at the museum on fanfiction.net (it was called stuffy if anyone reading this has read it) and night at the museum was one of the first pieces of media i ever hyperfixated on. with all the news of the animated sequel (thatll probably proves everything in this fic wrong) and broadway musicals, the hyperfixation came back and i had to do a kind of spiritual sucessor to my first ever fic. thanks so much for reading, guys, and have a too-long glossary of terms and practices i researched for this fic.  
> check the comments for a glossary of things i researched for this fic while writing it!  
> thanks so much for reading!


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